It is another edition of 20 Questions Tuesday on a Wednesday. Here we go!

Art is in the eye of the beholder. All of my D&D buddies are now quietly saying to themselves, “But the beholder has many eyes.” Well, good people, art is many different things. This week I aim to answer 20 Questions about art. Let’s do this.

1. Two part question. Are they still making Arts today (as in people named Art)? I don’t remember going to school with anyone named Art and neither do my kids...and in the history of Arts, the name is mediocre at best. Art Schlichter, Briles and Model can all rot in hell. Don’t get me started with Art Linkletter and Rooney. Art Carney chili, overrated (shout out to Mel). Other than the name Adolph, is there a more disappointing group of names than Art.Part the first: People are named Arthur and nicknamed Art. That being said there are not many. The name is ranked 245 for 2018. I would imagine it is mainly a middle name these days. Part the second: The middle name of Wayne… that just screams “I am going to eventually murder someone.”

2. What is art?Simple, yet difficult question here. Art is any creative expression that is intentionally created/performed/done to invoke an emotional response. So… almost everything can be, but the intentionality of the making of it is necessary. Making a fork could be art, provided the person is intentionally creating the fork as a creative expression.

3. Do you think of yourself as an artist?Sometimes.

4. What's the difference between "arts" and "crafts"?Absolutely nothing.

5. Do kids benefit from art class in school?Of course they do. Just like kids benefit from physical exercise during their education, they also benefit from artistic expression. Artistic expression forces kids to think much more generatively and promotes creativity and ingenuity.

6. Do you like art museums?Yes, but not as much as one would think.

7. Can you explain the diff between art and pornography? Or do you just know it when you see it?I see what you did there, but I will answer nonetheless. The line where things flip from art to pornography is different for every person, however there are typically lines that can be generally agreed upon as making something one or the other. I think the big difference is the intentionality of the creation process.

8. What are your top 3 works of art?My top 3 that I have produced? Or my favorite 3 pieces that I enjoy looking at. We will go with the former instead of the latter because there are too many of the latter to choose from and the former promises to be more fun.2 of my 3 are my award winning fantasy maps that showed at a digital cartography art show in SoHo NYC about 5 years ago.The first is “Something Swampish This Way Comes.” This one is more of a custom dungeon map done for a Cartographer’s Guild mapping challenge years ago. The challenge was to take a set of primitive shapes and make an interesting minifig type map from it. The task I set forward on this map was to create multiple planes, and to have the viewer realize that there is a ground level, and it is above the water-line.

The second is “The Tenorous System.” This map was another map done for a Cartographer’s Guild mapping challenge about the same number of years ago. The challenge for this map was to create a solar system map. I wanted to make a more artistic old world style map that is set in a highly developed set of societies.

Both of these maps were in that digital art show.

My third is a piece I no longer have access to that was a still-life I did in college as a part of my Drawing II class. This piece was selected by my art prof to show in a Kent State student art show back in 1994. It was an ink wash with some raw umber and white conte crayon highlights still life of some random stuff I had on my desk at the time. I only have my flawed memories of this one, but in my mind it kicks all kinds of ass.

9. What do you think of those “artists” out there that just pee on a cross and call it art?Well, that is very specific, I think you may be grumpy about the National Endowment of the Arts’s funding of controversial artists. Here’s the thing, we do not know what these artists’ applications were to ask for funding. For example let’s think about the piss and cross example from above. The actual application could have been for funding to create an artistic “work” in order to stoke a media controversy and cause a religious fervor and backlash. Maybe the grant was not for the artistic artifact but for the performance art that the artifact generated? How do you like them apples?

10. Can anyone make art? Or can anyone craft, but art is different?Anyone can make art and anyone can craft. Now, not everyone can make good art or craft well, but we can all do it to some level.

11. If everyone can make art, can everyone consider themselves to be artists?Sure, you can consider yourself an artist regardless of talent. That does not mean that others will consider you an artist though. I can think myself the King of My Own Home, that does not mean that others think that as well.

12. Which famous Art is your favorite and why?Caspar David Friedrich because he is a not that well known gothic artist. If not him, maybe Thomas Eakins, because he took some of the color pallette of the more “realistic” expressionism pieces and really tightened it up while keeping things soft.

13. Can anyone become really good at art?Nope, talent is necessary in some instances. Skill and practice will only take you so far. That being said, everyone can be better at art. Everyone.

14. Is Roy Lichtenstein stuff actually art?Oooh, this is a tough one. It is… however it is really art done in a shady way. Copying someone else’s work that was most likely not paid well, and selling it for a significant mark-up without crediting the original piece or compensating the original artist is shady as fuck.

15. People look at lots of modern art like Jackson Pollok’s stuff and say “What’s so special about that? I could do that?” Could they?They could not, because they have not. If they could have and found a buyer, the should have.

16. In a world leading country, is public funding of the arts a privilege, a necessity, a right?Some level of society driven arts patronage is a necessity. Elsewise we become un-creative automatons.

17. Do the arts help civilization or harm it?The “arts” help civilization by helping to determine where lines of acceptability by poking and prodding the edges and creating some cultural mores and values. These change over time because art pushes those edges.

18. Should only the wealthy be allowed to personally decide how to fund arts that they like?Nope, there is a democratization of art funding happening at the moment through micro-funding platforms like Patreon and Kickstarter. Historically the arts have primarily been patronized by the rich, because the rich were the only ones who had the disposable income to throw at artists. I think there is an Adam Ruins Everything about rich people arts patronage that gets into some of this.

19. Is art a commodity?A commodity is a raw product that one can predict the contract value associated with that product in a future’s market, think oranges or pork bellies. I do not see art as a commodity because there is no futures market for “art.” One might be able to create a futures market for either artists or art supplies, but not art.

20. Is the (potential) lack of funding for the arts a reflection of the lack of value the arts has in society, or are some people just not understanding the value?It is people not understanding the value of arts in a cultural, educational, or developmental level. There are an insane amount of peer reviewed studies, written by non-artists, that show demonstrably the benefits of art in culture, it really is a non-question as to whether or not arts are necessary for a culture and therefore funding should be. If you can win in Civilization VI by having a “cultural victory,” it is an important thing.

To recap:The Winter Olympics coverage on the NBC’s has been weak... super weakI have only seen the first teaser trailer for Black PantherI am still beyond excited for seeing the movie on FridayNot as excited as my wifeSomething about Michael B Jordan and Chadwick Boseman

I cannot argue, thems some beautiful mensI hear the movie is a bit of a game-changerSuperhero movies need a bit of a game-changerThey are getting a bit formulaicThe wife is in St Paul at the momentHer work has her staying in a conference center that was once a children’s hospital/children’s mental hospital/children’s sanitariumCreepy. As. Hell.She is staying in this room